The Iconic W Los Angeles Hotel Is The Perfect Base For A Mother-Daughter Shopping Spree

My eight-year-old daughter, Djuna, was born with a strong fashion sense. We don’t know where it came from, really, but aside from making visual art and music, fashion is her chief passion. So, when it came time to treat her to a special mother-daughter weekend getaway, we headed to Los Angeles, of course. My oldest friend from childhood lives on the Westside, so we decided to make our base the iconic W Los Angeles Hotel.

The hotel, famous for its pool and nightlife scene, is adjacent to UCLA, and its somewhat residential location makes it easy to secure for celebrity VIP takeovers — so, it has the aura of classic Hollywood, which thrilled my daughter to no end. We were upgraded to a presidential suite, which made it hard to leave and do our shopping duty. (Read full review here.)

No matter your shopping druthers, the Westside is easily accessible to both small boutiques and full-spectrum shopping malls, and we perused both over the course of our long weekend in Los Angeles, with small a foray over to the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures.

The two easiest-access malls are the Westfield Century City and The Grove, both chock full of kid-centric options. Along with the usual suspects, like H&M and Gap Kids, both at the Westfield, we discovered Cotton On Kids and Little Posh, two stores we don’t have near us in the Bay Area. Djuna’s top pick at The Grove was the large children’s room at Zara, much better than the brands’ other branches we’d visited before.

But the real creativity came when we hit Larchmont, a shop-lined street with many kids’ options — and, surprisingly, tons of sales. Flicka was our hands-down favorite, with a range of styles in the size we needed, none of which broke the bank.

We spent one entire morning at the W’s legendary pool, in a cabana with food and beverage service, and each night we came home to our luxe presidential suite at the W, complete with a viewing theater.

We also dined about town, skewing Italian, Djuna’s favorite — because Parmigiano, prosciutto, etc. and so forth. We had a spectacular meal at Eataly’s Terra, as well as a nostalgic-for-me return to old favorite Angelini Osteria.

In the end, we picked up, count ‘em, 17 new pieces for Djuna’s wardrobe, from a $100 formal coat that will likely only be worn a handful of times to a couple of $7 graphic tees, with some cool, pearl-colored low walking boots in between — all for under $500. I wonder how long I can keep her from the knowledge of the differences between Target and Rodeo Drive, a revelation that will be a point of no return? My guess is about five minutes.

It remains to be seen what turns my daughter’s interests will take over the course of the next decade, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see her apply to design school and launch a clothing brand in the city that first caught her fashion attention, beyond the boundary-less of her own creative spark.